The tentative closure date for Harrelson Materials Management's Russell Road landfill in Shreveport is about six months from now, according to a state issued order.

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Glover on Harrelson Management landfill

But the landfill will not close, according to Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality officials, until subterranean fires that have been burning at the landfill for several years have been extinguished.

Under a recently approved DEQ ordered mitigation and closure plan, owner Michael Harrelson and his employees are tasked with extinguishing the fires, which have intermittently flared above the ground's surface this summer.

About a dozen residents of Shreveport's MLK neighborhood voiced frustration and concerns Tuesday at the latest of several meetings about the smoldering landfill and its offput to the surrounding community. The meeting was hosted by Sen. Greg Tarver at Southern University at Shreveport's Jesse N. Stone Science Lecture Hall.

Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover also had scathing remarks about the landfill's continued operation despite improper permitting and about the DEQ.

"In every aspect of this situation, going back over two decades, every single act, every single step that has been taken by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has been to protect the interests of Michael Harrelson and not to protect the people of Louisiana," Glover said at the meeting.

Glover said the mitigation plan approved by the DEQ is "flimsy," and called into question the amount of training Harrelson and his employees have had in fighting subterranean fires.

Harrelson "and three of his employees have gone to three days worth of training. In order to be a Shreveport fire fighter you have to go to six weeks," Glover said. "They've been to three days of training to put out a fire that this man said has been burning since 2000."

Cheryl Nolan, DEQ assistant secretary over enforcement, said the mitigation plan and amount of training required for Harrelson and his employees were approved by the state fire marshal.

The plan and order apply to the construction and demolition debris landfill and not to Harrelson's other operations on the property, which include wood waste and cement processing, Nolan said.

Nolan said the DEQ cannot revoke permits as the mayor and residents asked them to with regard to the wood waste and cement operations.

"It's not regulated as solid waste, therefore we don't have a regulatory hook," she said. "There are no DEQ permits other than with the landfill."

Nolan said the other operations may continue despite the closure of the landfill, and they are not under the DEQ's authority.

The landfill is still accepting construction waste and will contain it to an area of the landfill Nolan said has not shown evidence of subterranean fires.

The continued operation in part of the landfill is to fund the mitigation plan, she said.

If in six months the fires have not been quelled, Nolan said the DEQ will make a decision about the department intervening.

"This hasn't happened yet. It's progressing as we think it should. This is just looking at what-ifs. Right now we are assuming this is going to work. We are going to close it," said Greg Langley, DEQ press secretary.

Langley said materials being taken by truck onto the property are not going to fuel the fires. Materials will be diverted to the unaffected part of the landfill or to the separate wood and concrete processing operations, he said.